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MONDAY FEBRUARY 20, 2017 10:37 AM More women in engineering workplace

When Richard Aulenbach Jr., founder, president and CEO of RPA Engineering, Spring Township, began his studies in mechanical engineering at the University of Pittsburgh in 1969, there was one female student in his class.

"Reflecting back on my career," said the 1973 graduate, "the first 10 years of women in engineering were challenging for them. They were viewed with great skepticism. But somewhere along the line, the reluctance to accept women shattered. Now it's a nonissue in most places."

Soon after he founded his company in 1989, starting as a one-man operation, one of the first engineers he hired was, in fact, a female mechanical engineer.

Now, 14 percent of RPA's 92 licensed engineers, including a few designers, are women, and that number is expected to grow, said Richard "Rick" Aulenbach III, Richard's son, who joined RPA five years ago as vice president of marketing and business development.

"When I came here, I saw the need, as engineering was changing, for some softer skills," Rick said.

As he was putting together an internship program that since has become national, he connected with top engineering programs, including those at Virginia Tech, the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, Penn State, the University of Pennsylvania and Lehigh University.

"We got engaged with their deans, their groups and clubs," he said. "We spoke at their schools. We got involved with the Society of Women Engineers, or SWE, on each campus. And we found that the influx of females in the freshman classes was awesome."

Female engineering students

According to statistics released by the Carnegie Mellon College of Engineering Dean's Office, 36 percent of the college's engineering students are female. The top three departments for women are chemical engineering (59 percent), civil and environmental engineering (53 percent) and materials science and engineering (48 percent).

In the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering, according to its website, from 2000 to 2010 there was a 12 percent increase in women earning bachelor's degrees in engineering, and a 56 percent growth rate in women graduate engineering students. Thirty percent of the incoming freshman class of engineering students are women. In bioengineering, the numbers of male and female students are about equal.

As RPA has welcomed female interns, many of whom wind up being hired after they graduate, Rick said he and his father have found that women are "some of our best performers. That 14 percent are young, vibrant leaders in the company."

In addition to excellent academic credentials, Richard said, RPA is seeking people who are good at listening to and communicating with clients and at getting along with other people, and in these areas, "women are at an advantage."

Rick said the fact that he's been able to recruit female interns and licensed engineers for the company is a testament to the science, technology, engineering and math programs in many K-through-12 schools, and the efforts of organizations such as SWE.

Women thinking about engineering as a career also can get information from the National Girls Collaborative Project and the National Academy of Engineering's website, EngineerGirl.com, with its profiles, "Ask an Engineer," and "Day in the Life" stories featuring young women in the field.

Rick said he has seen a trend in women gravitating to chemical and biomedical engineering, rather than the more traditional mechanical or electrical fields.

"I see them wanting to be in the forefront of medical device design, or being in the pharmaceutical world with cutting-edge stuff," he said. "They can go into consulting, or they can go to medical school. We do lose some of our female interns to these other industries, not because they fail, but because they choose to go in another direction."

Involved with schools

In addition to connecting with colleges around the country, RPA also is involved with schools of various levels in Berks County, Rick said.

"We have an affiliation with Penn State Berks: We judge senior projects, we're on committees and boards, we take interns and meet with recent graduates," he said. "I'm impressed with what they have accomplished; the Gaige Building, which houses the Division of Engineering, is magnificent."

He also had high praise for the STEM program in the Wilson School District, whose new science facilities are "state-of-the-art, better than in some small universities," he said.

He said awareness of the importance of STEM studies is growing in many of the Berks County school districts as students are asking for such programs.

"Some of the schools would rather buy a $20,000 3-D printer to show parents," he said. "But they should use that money to build the curriculum from the ground up. It's not just about gadgets; it's a process."

Rick said he also advocates students learning a trade such as welding or plumbing at one of Berks County's Career and Technology Centers, where several former RPA engineers teach, as preparation for getting a degree in engineering.

"They are great," he said. "The different labs are fantastic; it's a good thing. Trade schools are coming back, and the infrastructure of the country needs people who can do things like this. There's a huge demand."

He said he envisions creating internships for high school students in the future, because the best engineering schools will begin to expect to see that from their applicants.

And many of those applicants will be female, as the barriers to women in engineering have fallen.

In fact, not only are women capable of contributing much to this in-demand field, but there are opportunities for balancing work and family life, Richard said.

"An engineering firm is similar to an accounting or law firm," he said. "We deal in intellectual capital, which is not tied to a precise time frame.

"We have a female engineer who lives in Delaware, and she commuted before. But now, she's working at home two days a week, because now she has two children. She can shift her schedule around. She has to participate in conference calls with clients, but other work can be done any time."


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